There’s always that quiet lull in the theatre where everyone shuffles to their seats, the curtain is down, and you sit in anticipation of the show starting. It still feels strange that 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Final Fantasy 14 can capture these moments so well. It🦩 doesn’t matter that the theatre I’m in is virtual — when you have attendants taking you to your seats, a fully equipped auditorium, and you’re about to watch an in-depth three-hour performance, you realise just how mu♏ch players have pushed the boundaries of the game.
The Firebird Theatre’s performance of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest was split into three acts, with two intermissions and elaborate set changes between each. I’ve always marvelled at how well polished shows like this are, with players perfecting their acting skills within the confines of the game t♕o use emotes and movement to the best of their abilities. It was also interesting to see a FF14 flair added to the script, with actors referring t൲o in-game terms and locations as part of the play itself.
I spoke with Sasanasu Lalanasu, Amilee, and Rhonwyn Gwynael from The Firebird Theatre about the work that goes into creating stageplays within FF14. “From an acting standpoint, timing out the lines of the play and keeping them readable and in a slow enough format for the audience to read has been one hurdle,” they explain in a group interview. “On top of that, the actors have to move across the stage and not have it look awkward, and make the emotes look fluid and meanin𝓰gful. There are limits to what we can do within the housing system with multiple people working as crew, with a limited selection of housing items and furniture slots in the house.”
The Firebird Theatre troupe formed in 2021 before debuting its first stage show, William Shakespeare’s Much Ado Abou♎t Nothing, in 2022. Once t🐓he team had wrapped up their last performance, they started planning for their next show.
“When looking for new material, we turned to our production staff, among which are a few wonderful people who possess a wealth of knowledge on theatre repertoire,” the team tells me. “We were especially interested in plays that were in the public domain, were popular, would interest patrons, and would be fun to do. In this case, two of our staff came back with lists that both included The Importance oﷺf Being Earnest, so we looked over t🐓he script and discovered that it was a gem that we’d be excited to produce.”
It took a month to finalise the basic plans for the show, 💝and then a total of nine months to get everything perfected, with the troupe boasting an incredible team of 13 cast members, four stage crew, ei൲ght ushers, a house manager, and a bard to entertain those queuing before the doors open.
The Firebird Theatre aimed to push the boat out further for this latest production, going above and beyond what they accomplished last time, “We loved the tech ♑work that we’ve added this time around. The play is a lot more dynamic with objects moving as actors interact with them, as well as with set changes during intermissions. For this show, we wanted to bring our tech work up a notch. We feel like we did that wonde𒅌rfully, and we believe that everyone who saw our last show would be proud to see how much more we took on this time.”
Creating content like this within FF14 comes with a host of limitations, and there are many ♑things the team would like to see added to the game to help with more creative projects like this. One of the biggest issues of any community show or venue is the restriction on the number of players allowed within a Free Company house.
There are also elements that could let performers take things to the next level in FF14. For example, the troupe wishes they could kick particular troublemakers from houses during performances and stop the pop-up from showing when Orchestrion Rolls are changed. They’d also like a greater range of control over actions, such as being able to pair expre𝔍ssions with emotes, or choosing specific idle poses instead of cycling through.
The Firebird Theatre has been touched by the overwhelmingly positive reception to the show, “We aren’t the first live theꦗatre in the game, so it seems that people are just excited to have more opportunities to attend virtual theatre. Everyone has been lovely and🦋 provided wonderful feedback. You can check the guestbook channel in our Discord to see what some folks have said about our shows.”
The next performance of The Importance of Being Earnest is today, Friday 12, at 8pm EST, with another show to follow tomorrow at 7pm EST. There will be two more shows next weekend to complete the schedule. The Firebird Theatre can be found on Aether, Faerie in Empyreum at Ward 6, Plot 60, you can find more 🎃information . If you can’t attend in person, you can always .
Once Th🌱e Importance of Being Earnest has finished, there’s still plಌenty more to look forward to. The Firebird Theatre is planning a winter show at the end of the year where they plan to put a FF14 spin on Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol with their show A Starlight Story.
